Roberta Blackman-Woods: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I will speak about Government new clause 3 and amendment (a) together. I tabled amendment (a) hoping to elicit more information from the Minister about what the Government are trying to do with new clause 3. On the face of it, that new clause seems very sensible in asking that development plan documents set out strategic priorities. That is quite hard to disagree with. What I am not clear about is whether an additional tier of work will be required of local authorities in putting their plan together.
I tabled amendment (a) simply so that I could ask the Minister to focus on the speedy production of local plans. He will know that this has been an ongoing issue for some time. It is undoubtedly the case that the local plan-making process put in place in 2004 ended up being rather more lengthy than those who put the legislation together—I hasten to add that it was not me—thought it would be. It is a very cumbersome  process for local authorities. It is not that all the documents are not needed. I will say something about that in a moment.
The issue—I think it is one that the Minister recognises, particularly in terms of the content of new clause 4—is that we need to get local authorities to a position where it is a more straightforward process for them to put a local development plan document together. We know that under the 2004 process, even where there were not really any local difficulties or much complexity, it was taking on average three years to produce the plan to make it ready for inspection. That was not getting it right through the process; that was just getting it ready and going through the various rounds of consultation.
The average cost of the process, from beginning to end, was a staggering £500,000. When I argued earlier in the Committee’s deliberations for putting more money into neighbourhood plans as the building block for local plan-making, that was the figure I had in mind. Lots of money is being set aside for consultation, but it has not always produced results that have altered the local plan-making process in any way. As I said earlier to the Minister, I think that money could be better spent.
I think it is fair to say that there has been a difference of opinion among some inspectors as to the weight that should be given to the plan, and various bits of the plan, during the whole process, particularly if the plan was referred back for a part of it to be rewritten. All in all, we have ended up in a situation where local plan-making has been very complex, lengthy and costly. I pay tribute to the Minister and others who are looking at streamlining this process, but I want to suggest a way of doing it that would help not only local authorities but local communities and all those who are subsequently involved in implementing the plan.
This is not actually my idea; it was put in evidence, before the last election, by the Planning Officers Society, the organisation that represents planners. They are the people who draw up the plans and then have to try and implement them. It is important that any Government listens to what they have to say about the planning system because they know better than anyone the difficulties and what would work in practice.
The planners, interestingly, have put together a two-stage process that relates directly to the content of new clause 3, which is why I made the suggestion here. They are suggesting a first stage, which could be the outcome of a lot of work with the local community to set strategic priorities for that specific local authority, or a group of local authorities if that is deemed to be more important. The critical point is that it would not require the long technical documents that currently go with local plans—such as a detailed minerals assessment or watercourse assessment—to be drawn up at that early stage.
I do not know whether the Minister has worked with local communities, particularly on the examination of a local plan, as I have in my local area on our local plan, but everyone came to the committee with documents at least 12 inches thick. They were incredibly complicated and technical, and unless someone is an expert they simply would not understand or have time to go through them. I am sure almost everyone could get to grips with such documents if they had all the time in the world,  but to expect a local community to go through such highly technical and detailed documents at the stage of a public inquiry does not seem sensible. Nothing will be agreed until the public examination takes place.
It would be really helpful to consider what planning officers are saying. They are suggesting getting the community on board for what is important to them, such as the strategic direction forward plan and what, broadly in terms of land use, the local authority will set out—what types of housing and other developments in what time frame. If it is possible to get broad agreement on that general way forward, there could be a second stage when the first one has been agreed and has been through a lighter-touch inspection. In the second stage, the more technical documents could be brought into the frame and all the professionals who will have to put the document into operation will be able to assess whether the technical support and evidence is there for the exact developments to take place.
I know the Minister is open to speeding up the process and introducing an easier one. I want to use the opportunity of amendment (a) to new clause 3 to suggest this as a possible way forward that could greatly speed up the whole process, not only for local authorities, but for the local community. That is the purpose of amendment (a).
There are two issues. It is really important to have a final date by which local authorities must produce their plan. I hope that we will not be sitting in another housing and planning Bill Committee, but I fear there may be one coming down the line. I certainly hope that in a year or 18 months, 30% of local authorities will not be without a plan in place. We certainly do not want to be here in 2020 with a set of local authorities not having a plan in place, 16 years after a Bill was enacted requiring a local plan.
As well as testing the Minister on whether he has given any consideration to how to speed up the overall planning process, I want to know whether he thinks it would be appropriate to set a final cut-off point for local plans to be made.

Gavin Barwell: That would be highly unfortunate and also unnecessary because the performance metric is purely about determining planning applications. It is just about ensuring that decisions are made within the statutory timescale.
Coming back to the issue the hon. Lady is probing with her amendment, what would be most useful—what she was really interested in—is some steer from me about when the powers under Government new clauses 4 and 5 might be used. The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton was useful in providing  a pointer about that. I will make two observations. One is generic: the hon. Lady was expressing nervousness that we might be back here in 12 months’ time debating another planning Bill. One of the things I wanted to do with this Bill was make sure that we took the necessary range of intervention powers in this area, so that we would not have to keep coming back and saying, “Actually, in this case we would like you to do this.” So I sat down with my officials and went through a variety of different situations and how Ministers might want to respond to them.
Taking my hon. Friend’s hypothetical example, if there is a local planning authority that is heavily constrained in terms of land—that is doing its best but is really struggling to meet housing needs in its area because of the make-up of that area—that would naturally lead to the use of new clause 4, because one might then look and say, “There are other authorities in the area that are not so constrained and if you worked together across that wider area, could you meet housing need across the area?”
My hon. Friend then mentioned a different kind of example: an authority that—an objective observer might suggest—had plenty of potential to meet housing need within its own area and was just ducking taking the necessary decisions. An intervention there, asking the authority to work with some neighbouring ones to produce a plan, would probably not work because they would continue to obstruct their neighbours and, as my hon. Friend said, potentially seek to pass the burden on to others. This might be a more suitable intervention power in those cases.
If the hon. Lady applies her mind to it, she can probably think of a couple of cases around the country in which a number of planning authorities within a county council area are struggling to meet their obligations. In that situation, looking at a county-wide solution to meeting housing need over a wider area might be an appropriate way forward. In some of those cases, county councils might choose to work with the relevant district councils, even if the Secretary of State gave them the formal responsibility.
Let me provide a little reassurance on a number of the detailed points that the hon. Lady made. She talked about three main things: skills and resources, and whether county councils had the skills and resources to do this work; the process in relation to the adoption of a plan—so if a county council produced a plan, how that plan got adopted; and also reassurance over residents’ involvement. I will deal with them in reverse order. I can provide her with complete reassurance on resident involvement. Local plans—whoever prepares or revises them—are subject to a legal requirement to consult the public and others there is a right to make representations on the plan. From the point of view of residents living in a particular area, their ability to have their say and input on a plan will be completely unaffected. I hope that provides complete reassurance on that point.
Adoption is set out in the detail of new schedule 1, which goes with the new clause. I point members of the Committee to new paragraph 7C(4), which says:
“The upper-tier county council may…approve the document, or approve it subject to specified modifications”—
there it refers to modifications that the inspector recommends—
“as a local development document, or…direct the lower-tier planning authority to consider adopting the document by resolution of the authority”.
The county council has a choice: it can take the legal decision and have the plan adopted, or—perhaps in circumstances in which it has worked with the district council to get to that point—it might be prefer to say, “Okay, there is the plan. It would be better for the district council to make that decision.” Either option is available.
On the resources front—financially, as it were—there are clear provisions in place. Let me deal with the skills front. County councils do have significant input and involvement in the local plan-making process. They often have a significant contribution to make in terms of infrastructure—highways infrastructure and some of those other issues—but clearly if the Secretary of State felt that a particular county council did not have the relevant skills to do the job, he or she would not seek to use this provision and might rely on those in new clause 4.
On resourcing and the financial side, there are provisions that can provide reassurance. A county council has to be reimbursed for any expenditure where it prepares a plan because a local planning authority has failed to do so. Likewise, when it is necessary for the Government to arrange for a plan to be written, they can recover the costs.
I recognise—perhaps it is inevitable—that, say, organisations that represent district councils will have concerns about the proposal, but I hope I have provided reassurance. First, I do not expect the provision to be used on a regular basis, and indeed district councils have in their hands the means to ensure that it is never used. Secondly, the Government have sought to address concerns on resident involvement, the adoption process and the skills and resourcing of county councils. Thirdly, the right thing to do in the Bill, given the strong cross-party consensus on the need to get plans in place, is to ensure that, where it is necessary to intervene, the Secretary of State has the powers to think creatively about the ways in which that might happen.
My view in terms of the hierarchy is that the preferable solution would be to direct a planning authority to work with some of its neighbours. If that were not viable, the county council route is an interesting route. My strong view is that the worst option is ultimately that the Government have to step in, intervene and write a plan because, by definition, they are the most distant from the relevant local community. I hope I have provided the reassurance that the hon. Lady was looking for.

Gavin Barwell: I am always grateful for tips. I think that I am coming up to co-chair a meeting of the Land Commission at the start of December with Tony Lloyd, so I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing that project to my attention.
I think that we are all localists here, but I hope that we all recognise that, to capitalise on the opportunities provided by new technology and gain maximum value, key planning data need to be published in a consistent format across the country. If every local planning authority opened up its data, but did so using different systems and in different ways, it would be much more difficult for people who want to operate across local planning authority boundaries to make use of the data.
The intention behind new clause 6 is to open up those possibilities, and it will do that by amending the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, with which we are becoming very familiar by now, to enable the Secretary of State to publish data standards. In essence, those standards are detailed technical specifications that local planning authorities must meet for documents that they are already required to publish.
We want to work with representatives of the sector to develop the specification of the data standards. We will then consult local planning authorities on the technical document that authorities will need to follow. Once the data standards are defined, they will apply to all local development documents, the planning documents prepared by a local planning authority; and local development schemes, the timetable for the preparation of the development plan documents that comprise the local plan.
The measure provides a solid basis for creating more accessible and more transparent plans. Opening up public data lies at the heart of a wider Government push for a digital nation, in which the relationship between individual citizens and the Government is transformed. This is a small, but important contribution to that.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I will make a few brief comments on new clause 6 and on amendment (a). The Opposition very much welcome new clause 6. Anything that the Government can do to make planning documents more accessible to local people, the better because, as I described earlier, some of those documents can be very weighty and lengthy. Being able to access them easily online and in a format in which people can comprehend them more easily will be a good thing and is very much to be welcomed.
I tabled the amendment on technical documents to test with the Minister whether the provisions of new clause 6 will relate to technical documents as well and to ask whether the Government will give some consideration—to reiterate a point I made earlier—to what exactly is needed in technical documents, which are public-facing documents. Obviously, we want people to have as much information as possible about what underpins policies in a local plan, but we also want to ensure that the important points do not get lost in a mass of detail such that people never seek to address, look at or try to understand the documents.
My first point is that I broadly welcome new clause 6, and it will be interesting to see how it works in practice and what sort of data the Secretary of State puts in the standards. I hope that the Minister will learn from his Cabinet Office colleagues about the open data project mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton and that the documents are made as successful as possible. Will the Minister deal with the specific issue I have raised about how we might do the whole technical documents thing?

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I accept that this is a fairly long new clause, but it seeks to do something that is really important: to put the purpose of planning in the Bill to be absolutely certain that it is about achieving long-term sustainable development and, critically, placemaking alongside that. It is very much along the lines of, but not identical to what is in the national planning policy framework.
The new clause then says what a local planning authority should do to try to achieve sustainable development: identify suitable land for development; contribute to the sustainable economic development of the community; contribute—this is really important because it often falls off the agenda when considering development issues—to the vibrant cultural and artistic development of the community; protect and enhance the natural and historic environment; contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in line with the objectives of the Climate Change Act 2008, which I rehearsed for the Committee the other day; promote high-quality and inclusive design, which in my experience planning applications and determinations do not pay enough attention to; ensure that decisions are transparent and involve as many local people as possible; and finally and really importantly because it often falls out of the decision-making process in applications, ensure that assets are managed for the long-term interest of the community.
Far too many developers in my area and others are very keen and quick to demolish or to enable alterations to be made to important historic buildings, for example, particularly if they are not protected by a listing. Planners often do not consider the short-term nature of some developments and whether they are of poor quality. If planning communities had to think about how they were managing assets for the longer term, some of the truly awful planning decisions that have been made might not have been made.
The Royal Town Planning Institute in its August 2016 report, “Delivering the Value of Planning”—I am sure that it was one of the first things to land on the new Minister’s desk—pointed out:
“Instead of stripping power from planning, governments need to maximise the potential of planning and ensure that planners have the powers and resources to deliver positive, proactive planning.”
That is the purpose of new clause 9.
In terms of how positive planning can be in delivering new development and communities, we also want to consider what is happening in some other countries. If the Minister is planning a world tour—he might be after this Bill, and certainly before the next one—he might want to visit China, where planning has become  the primary tool for municipalities to attract new industrial and residential developments. Because China is developing new cities, which is not happening everywhere around the globe, it is an interesting place to visit to see what planning can deliver when it is done properly and how it can overcome obstacles to growth.
I will not say that everything about the system in China is absolutely fantastic, because I am not sure that is the case, but China is keen, through the planning system, to develop new settlements and ensure that they are underpinned by economic development and deliver all the different facilities and services required to make a new community and a new place where people want to live. My point is that we in the UK are in danger of losing that kind of proactive planning and thinking about how to envision a neighbourhood going forward for 30 or 50 years.
I know that the Minister’s White Paper is getting bigger by the day, but I want to add something else for him to consider in it. How might he encourage local authorities, either singly or in combination, to think about delivering new settlements? I suspect that we will not be able to address the housing need in this country unless we think about how to support local authorities to bring together new settlement proposals. My preferred route to that is to facilitate the development of new garden cities underpinned by the garden city principles, because that seems most agreeable to local communities. When I have talked to people in my local community about a garden village or a garden city extension, they understand what it means. They think that it will be a good-quality development with decent, affordable family housing, a range of services, access to employment and transport and an ongoing fund for the community to keep infrastructure and services in a reasonable condition.
I will not say much more, but I point the Minister to the RTPI’s new publication. There are also regular publications by the Town and Country Planning Association and others that point to a positive role. The reason why I emphasise it with him is that in the past, I have had lots of discussions—I think that the current Minister is the third or fourth Planning Minister with whom I have dealt—and what I have heard is that planning is a block to development and is what holds up development in this country. It is often portrayed in a negative way, whereas we know that planning can be the method by which we create development. In fact, if we use planning positively it can deliver the neighbourhoods and the places that we all want to see developed and would all want to live in and bequeath to our children and grandchildren. New clause 9 asks for something to be put in the Bill to recognise the positive role that planning can play in making places we all want to live in; in protecting our need not only for employment and housing but for access to culture and leisure; and in promoting healthy environments.

Jim McMahon: The new clauses are linked: they both relate to resources and funding. New clause 10 would ensure that we carry out a thorough review to understand the situation in local authorities, while new clause 15 would give local authorities the ability to charge more realistic fees for the services they provide.
We have heard a great deal in Committee about resourcing—it was a key feature of the oral evidence sessions—and about how local authorities have been affected by central Government cuts to the revenue support grant and how that has affected planning services. Despite that, local authorities are still subsidising planning services, because they are not able to get enough money from planning fees to cover the cost of those services.
It is worth spending some time to remind ourselves of the evidence that was given by industry professionals. We heard representations from Andrew Dixon from the Federation of Master Builders, who said clearly:
“Under-resourcing is a major issue that causes numerous hold-ups within”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 11, Q6.]
the planning system. Roy Pinnock from the British Property Federation reinforced that point. He said:
“There is a general consensus, particularly among commercial development investors, that you get what you pay for. There is a completely profound lack of resource in authorities to deal with the situation in which we find ourselves. It is the single biggest brake”—
we must heed that—
“on development, in terms of applications and starts on site”.—[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 12, Q9.]
That is someone who is in the industry and representing the industry saying, “Look, we recognise that if we want a decent service, it is going to cost, but it is worth paying that cost, because that will speed applications up, we will get a better quality service and the industry will benefit overall.”
We heard evidence from Hugh Ellis, who said that research that the Town and Country Planning Association had carried out
“showed that planning teams had fallen below the critical mass”.—[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 26, Q34.]
Those teams cannot even keep their heads above water. We heard from the Minister only the other day that conditions were being used as an “abuse” and were being put in place because planning teams did not have the resources to administer conditions in a way that developers would find realistic and reasonable. I think “abuse” is pushing it. That is an understandable reaction to where planning teams find themselves. They cannot deal with the mountain of planning applications that are coming through. If the economy goes and we see the number of houses being built that the Government and communities want, those teams’ workload will increase. We need to ensure that we have the capacity to deliver those houses.
On sustainability, witnesses also told us that there is evidence that authorities do not have enough people to deal with complex sites, particularly where flooding is an issue. Mr Ellis said that when the Town and Country Planning Association visited some such authorities, it
“found 1.2 full-time equivalent members of staff were working on a local plan process”—[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 26, Q34.]
let alone administering planning applications.
Most people would recognise that the number of staff that are needed is not fixed. That will always be a matter of local discretion and ensuring that demand is matched with the resource to administer that demand. We are therefore not prescribing numbers, but we are reflecting the fact that we need to ensure that there is a “critical mass” in the planning system—a point that came through strongly in the evidence.
We heard from Councillor Newman, who represented not just his own council—although he described quite a lot of first-hand experience of the real difficulties that local councils face—but the cross-party LGA. This is not a party political issue; it is just a practical reflection on the position local councils find themselves in. He offered a solution on behalf of the LGA: to have locally set planning fees. He highlighted that it would then
“be for the local authority to justify both the fees it charges and the outcomes of the service it offers.”—[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 27, Q35.]
Effectively, there would be a direct contract between the developers who pay for that service and the local authorities that provide it—a relationship of equals, I hope. That is a realistic and reasonable proposal. We also heard evidence from Tim Smith, who said:
“Successive proposals to change legislation have all brought about additional burdens on local planning authorities without a consequent increase in the resourcing available to them.—[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 67, Q118.]
Evidence from the Minister, who pointed to the White Paper and discussions that are taking place, was reassuring, but we need to reassure our local authorities. We have been debating expectations and pressures on local authorities, and it is fair to say that there is nervousness about that. Councils are not unwilling to do what is proposed—I think most accept that a well run planning system based on plans and evidence is the way to go—but there is very real concern about those proposals.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham mentioned in a previous sitting, the British Property Federation report published in October last year titled, “Key findings—a system on the brink?” That may be a leading title. Members might be able to guess what the report is going to say. It says that the system is on the brink, but there are lots of data in it about how the industry feels about navigating an under-resourced planning system. The BPF did a review and deep-dived in a number of areas, including Greater Manchester—it has been held up a few times in our sessions as an area of best practice—but even there it found a system on the brink. It also expressed concern about the future for local government finance. It said:
“However, with further Government cuts looming, the risk is that down-sizing (rather than investment) could top the agenda. This is worrying news for all involved in, and dependent upon, planning activity in England. Development activity is critical for our economy”—
I think we can all agree on that—
“not least in order to tackle the urgent housing crisis; but the planning system appears to be hovering dangerously close to the edge. Our findings suggest that more resourcing is needed…and quickly.”
That “and quickly” bit is important. It is not necessarily about the new burdens coming forward. The current planning system under the current rules with the current demand is struggling to keep up. Just imagine what the added weight of expectation and demand will do.
The report also asked developers and local authority planning departments:
“Is the planning environment now better or worse than it was in 2010?”
Among local authorities, 11% said it was much worse and 39% said it was worse. Only 25% said it was better. That broadly reflects that greater clarity is coming through on expectations, but resources are not being provided to ensure that local authorities can deliver on those expectations.
The report also asked about the challenges to local authorities in delivering on developers’ ambitions. Unsurprisingly, the biggest challenge was under-resourcing: 55% of local authorities said it was a significant challenge and 86% said it was a challenge. Only a small minority of authorities believe that under-resourcing was not an issue. We know that under-resourcing affects not only applications and the administration of applications, but partnerships. As we have discussed, when the system works well, we have ambitious planning departments, communities ambitious for their future and ambitious developers working together to the same end and pooling resources to ensure they have the best quality communities and housing being developed. That relationship is put under strain if there is frustration within the system, and that is a pity.
We see planning officials who have spent a long time being trained in their profession and have a genuine desire to see quality design brought through. We see developers that have sometimes gone through a long period acquiring land and working with their architect to develop something that they believe will add value. With neighbourhood plans, communities will have had real involvement in designing the communities they will live in. It would be a real shame, with that mix and after trying to get the framework right, not to ensure that the resources are there to deliver on the plans.
From the evidence that was given, the best thing to do is not necessarily to ask Government to write a cheque. Perhaps the Chancellor will be pleased about that; I am sure many Ministers come knocking on the door asking for more cash. As far as I can see, the measure that would make the most difference would be for local authorities to have the freedom, autonomy and ability to decide for themselves in the local context the appropriate fees to be levied on a development, both at application stage and to discharge conditions.
New clause 15 is not a probing amendment. We have heard the assurances on the White Paper and what we might be able to expect from that. The new clause is so important that we will want to press it to a vote. Hopefully a vote will not be needed; the measure makes sense to me. Local government is putting it on the table as an option. Perhaps we can agree, and the consensual spirit we have been working towards will not be spoiled by what is a very logical amendment.

Chris Philp: It continues to be a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. As I said in an evidence session, I completely accept the principle we just heard described, that planning departments are woefully under-resourced, which is a significant inhibitor to development and to planning consent being granted, and that the most appropriate way to remedy that under-resourcing is for applicants—the developers—to pay higher fees. I agree with the spirit of what has been said. This is a point I raised in the Housing and Planning Bill Committee in this very room a year ago and with both the current Housing and Planning Minister and his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis). I am completely on board with the principles being described. However, the two new clauses have some deficiencies.
New clause 10 simply says that where there is inadequate resource, a review must be conducted to set out the appropriate level of resource. Setting it out does not provide it. That is simply a statement that there is inadequate resource, so I do not think new clause 10 addresses the problem; it simply highlights the fact that the problem exists, which we all know already.
New clause 15 is very generally worded. It gives local authorities complete discretion to set their own fees. I have three concerns about it. First, there is no limit on how high the fees might go. I accept that the fees are currently too low, but as drafted the new clause would mean that some local authorities might set fees that are unreasonably high and in fact deter development. There is nothing in the new clause to address that concern. Secondly, there is nothing to ensure that the money raised by higher fees will be ring-fenced for the provision of additional planning services, nor, in a similar vein, to  ensure that the existing level of service being provided by general taxation is maintained. There is nothing to ensure that the extra money raised leads to extra—that is to say, incremental—levels of resource in the planning department, which is what I want. Thirdly, the new clause does not place any performance obligations on the local authority planning department. It is essential that if a developer or applicant is paying higher fees, they receive improved performance in return—for example, a decision made within a certain period.
While I fully support the principles articulated by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, I am afraid to say that the details do not quite pass muster. I could not support a new clause unless it had those three things: reasonable fee levels, ring-fenced money to ensure incremental service provision and a link to performance. I am deeply sorry that I will not be able to support the new clause, despite the fact that I support its spirit.
I listened carefully to the Minister’s evidence and what he said about the coming White Paper. I very much hope to receive satisfaction when that White Paper is published—I hope in the near future. Should these measures not find their way into the White Paper, I will be an energetic and active advocate of those principles in due course. I would be happy to discuss this further with the Minister.

Gavin Barwell: As the hon. Lady said, new clause 12 relates to section 106 planning obligations and viability assessments. Planning obligations are normally agreements negotiated between the applicant and the local planning authority. They usually relate to developer contributions to infrastructure and affordable housing, and reflect policy in local plans.
The purpose of a section 106 planning obligation is to mitigate the impact of otherwise unacceptable development, to make it acceptable in planning terms. Local planning authorities may seek viability assessments in some circumstances, but Government guidance is clear that decision taking on individual applications does not normally require an assessment of viability. Developers may submit a viability assessment in support of their negotiations, if they consider that their proposed development would be rendered unviable by the extent of planning obligations sought by the local planning authority. Some authorities make such assessments publicly available, which I suggest shows the hon. Lady that there is no need to introduce legislation. Local authorities are currently perfectly free under the law to do what she wants them to do.
It is important that local authorities act in a transparent way in their decision-making processes. My main point of assurance to the hon. Lady is that there is already  legislation—principally the Freedom of Information Act, but also and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004—that governs the release of information. If necessary, that legislation enables people to seek a review if they are not satisfied by the response of the local authority and, ultimately, to appeal to the Information Commissioner if they remain unsatisfied.

Gavin Barwell: The hon. Lady is wrong. It has not collapsed; it continues to help large numbers of people own their own homes. There were two different Help to Buy schemes: the mortgage guarantee scheme and the equity loan scheme. The mortgage guarantee scheme, which applied to all homes, was basically a market intervention because after the great depression of 2008-09 there was a point in time when people with low deposits were not able to access mortgages. The scheme was an intervention to deal with that. The market has now adjusted and it is possible to access those kinds of mortgages.
The equity loan scheme applies when people are looking to buy a new build property. That scheme is still running because there is a strong public policy benefit. Research evidence shows that something like 40% of those purchases are homes that otherwise would not have been built. The scheme is therefore helping to drive up the supply of new housing, which ultimately is the critical issue we are debating. The publicity the hon. Lady has read—to reassure her, she is not the only person to have got the wrong end of the stick—was about a particular part of the Help to Buy scheme that is coming to an end at the end of this year. The equity loan scheme is continuing, and it will continue through to at least 2021.
I will not go much further, because this is slightly tangential to the main issue, but I want to reinforce strongly and publicly that the starter homes policy will bring home ownership within the reach of a significant number of people who would not otherwise find it affordable. It is not the only answer—other things are required, and I am happy to accept that affordable housing should be about not just helping people to afford to buy but shared ownership and affordable homes for people to rent. We should not say that the starter homes initiative is not making a contribution to helping people afford a home of their own.

Jim McMahon: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 14 intends to finally hold the Government to account on the extension of permitted development rights. We have heard a lot about our aspirations for quality, decent neighbourhoods and places where people aspire to live and are proud to live. Extension of permitted development rights flies in the face of that, because it allows a free-for-all for developers without checks and balances, local control and long-term stability and quality in mind.
It was evident that the reason that this was introduced was to kick-start the number of units being brought to the market. Most people anticipated that it would be a temporary move until more permanent features were introduced that took a longer-term view. Many people  were, therefore, surprised when it became permanent. They say, and I agree, that it flies in the face of what the Government are trying to do on a range of other issues. That is the purpose behind the new clause.
It is worth putting the new clause into some context. The Library has provided data—I know that, like me, the Minister has a passion for data. Figures from his own Department highlight the reduction in the number of units being converted from commercial to residential use—a figure that dropped significantly, unsurprisingly, in the 2008 crash, because demand fell. Up to that point, many decent-quality conversions took place. Many of our major cities and towns were revitalised, with mills being converted into decent properties that people wanted to live in, creating brand-new communities in areas that were previously derelict. Those conversions were welcomed by many people, but since the financial crash we have seen a year-on-year reduction in the number of conversions. In 2006-07, 20,000 units were converted, but the number fell 12% in the following year and by 6%, 18% and 15% in subsequent years. With the introduction of the temporary extension to permitted development, the figure increased in 2014-15 back to 20,000 units.
If the intention was to kick-start such development and get it back to where it was before the crash, it achieved that, but developers and communities were waiting for the long-term plan that would put quality and affordability back into the system. It is depressing that that has not been forthcoming. Although 20,000 units were brought to the market in 2014-15, it only takes us back to the pre-crash situation. That is good news, but there is a world of difference in the quality of what was being developed before the financial crash and what is currently being developed under extended permitted development rights—and I am not the only one saying that.
We heard several representations in our oral evidence sessions. We have shared our own views on the issue. I also sought out the views of Shelter, which has a keen interest in ensuring that we provide decent-quality housing. It has a living home standard because it wants to ensure that affordability and quality are key in people being able to access their own home, but when it applied the test, four out of 10 households failed it on affordability. Many of the developments being converted from commercial to residential use are in some of the most expensive parts of the country. Developers are making a lot of money off the back of such schemes, without providing the quality.
Julia Park is the head of housing research at Levitt Bernstein and she spent seven months advising DCLG on its housing strategy towards the Housing and Planning Bill. She was advising Government and she was aware of the discussions that were taking place, and her assessment is stark. Her view is that the office to residential free-for-all has resulted in terrible homes, including some flats of only 14 square metres. “Terrible” was the term that she used, as someone actually involved in the housing and planning review. That was not a political point, but a professional view of the quality of those homes. In another pointed remark, she said:
“Bypassing all standards except basic building regulations is short-sighted and desperate”.

Gavin Barwell: To a degree, we had a debate on the principle of this earlier when we debated clause 8, so I will not rehearse all those arguments. However, I will pick out three or four points from what the hon. Gentleman said and then make one substantive point about the wording of the amendment, which I think is relevant.
I think that I am quoting the hon. Gentleman correctly—he was quoting somebody else; they were not his words—in saying that the allegation is that this is all about speed and political benefit at the expense of quality. I think I captured the quote correctly. There is no political benefit at all; the benefit is providing homes to thousands of people who otherwise would not have them. There absolutely is a debate to be had about quantity versus quality. I suspect that that is an ongoing debate in housing policy, but it is worth putting it on record that there is no political benefit to the policy. The Government are trying to drive up the supply of housing in this country to meet the urgent pressing need for extra homes. That is what the policy is about.
The hon. Member for City of Durham gave some terrible examples she had seen of how the policy had been misused. As constituency MPs, we all see examples of where people have gone ahead and done things without getting planning, and the enforcement system has not picked it up, and we also see examples of developments that planners have approved that are of appalling quality. Even if we lived in a world where every single change to any building, however de minimis, had to go through a formal planning process and acquire planning permission, that would not be a guarantee of quality, and we should not pretend that it would be.
Ultimately, the argument is about the extent to which members of the Committee believe there is an urgent need to build more homes in this country. I have touched on this before, but several issues have been raised in this debate on planning conditions and permitted development. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw was speaking on Second Reading on the duty to co-operate, but despite the Opposition’s rhetoric, saying that they recognise the urgent need for more homes in this country, they oppose policies that help deliver those crucial homes.
Rather than re-run the argument of principle, I make one point on the wording of the new clause. When we came to clause 8, despite our differences on the principle of permitted development, there was agreement that it was a good clause because it would ensure that data were available not only to the Government but to all of us to enable us to assess whether the policy was a good  policy. The new clause would require a review of the policy before the Government could commence the provisions of the legislation—before we have the data we all agreed were crucial. The hon. Member for City of Durham was nodding gently as I made that point.
The Opposition may well want to press the new clause to a vote as a vote on the principle of permitted development, but its wording is not sensible as it would require that review to happen before we had the crucial data that we all agreed were needed to make a judgment on the policy.